Feasting the Kingdom Way

 Luke 14:1-14

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I have a secret aspiration.  I want to be a busker.  You know, take my hillbilly dog and pony show downtown somewhere and just start playing and see who throws money at me.  I need to fund the kid’s education somehow.  But doing that comes with some difficult decisions to be made.  One, venue is important.  Where would be a good place to go play.  Downtown Owen Sound would be a marginal bet.  If the goal were to fill a hat with coinage, that’s likely not going to happen there.  Most of the people lingering down there might enjoy the music, but they need their coinage more than I do.  I could take the show on the road to the beaches at Southampton or Sauble Beach.  Those would be lucrative places with all the tourists and the people stopping to listen would likely be able to afford tipping a musician generously.  In Southampton, I could take some business cards and invite people to come to church when they take the time to find out who I am and where I’m from.  That would be cool.  

But there’s another thing that weighs on my mind when it comes to deciding whether or not to busk and where to do it.  The music I play came from the hearts of people in Appalachia who were down and out and, quite frankly, oppressed.  Also, the music was a gift to me from these people.  I don’t feel right making money off of it.  I was an outsider coming in to their world to learn their culture when they gave it to me.  For me to take their gift and use it for monetary gain would be a lot like doing what Andrew Carnegie and them other billionaire philanthropists otherwise known as “robber barons” did to them by deceitfully stealing mineral rights and lumber rights from them and creating an oppressive economic system that still keeps Appalachians in poverty today.  The music for these people, “their music”, was/is a great comfort to them in the midst of economic hardship as well as a huge part of their identity.  Is it right for me to profit from that?

So, if I were to choose a local venue in which Appalachian music could bring comfort to people like them, the best place would actually be downtown Owen Sound and refuse any tips or find somebody down there who needs them.  Some down and out people would get the chance to dance and feel valued and might appreciate that somebody dropped in just to give them a little uplift.  This way of busking, if you could still call it busking, wouldn’t then simply be all about me, the performer, and my talent but rather more about a sharing in community that is reflective of the Kingdom of God, community in which Jesus is present.  I think maybe just going and playing for people and expecting nothing in return would look a lot like Jesus.

But anyway, sorry I ran y’all through this thought exercise.  But it’s an important one to make.  You see, we who follow this guy Jesus, we have a particular task of assessing whether or not we use our giftedness, the talents we have, and, really, how we live the totality of our lives in ways that are reflective of Jesus and the Kingdom of God.  Do we serve his purposes or our own with our lives and gifts, which actually, he gave us?

Well, to answer that question let’s take a moment and look at our reading here in Luke which I think shows us some core things to look for that would indicate whether or not what we do with our lives and gifts and what we do together as a congregation is reflective of Jesus and his Kingdom.  Here in Luke, Jesus finds himself at a dinner party hosted and attended by people whom we are a bit more like than we would like to admit.  He’s not quite welcome there.  But as usual, as he goes about being Jesus, the Kingdom manifests and what we see are that healing, humility, and indiscriminate hospitality show up when he’s around.  Let’s have a run through these three things, but first just a quick note about the people at the party.  

Jesus is attending a Sabbath meal at the home of a very important Pharisee and he himself is not a very welcome guest.  The Pharisees believed that the Messiah would soon be coming and in order to be welcomed into the Kingdom of God when he came one had to be the best Jew one could possibly be.  The Pharisees were quite zealous about that particularly about observe the Law of Moses. But, as Jesus liked to point out, they were good at finding loopholes that turned being obedient into being hypocritical and actually quite profitable.  As the goal for them was to be as Law Observant as possible they unfortunately began to compete with one another over who was the best and also to look down their noses at those who were not Pharisees.  They had this arrogance that was like: “Look at me.  I spent 1,000 shekels on this fine robe for standing in the temple praying.  I deserve the finest seat at every banquet.”  Anyway, they believed they were the ones most deserving of the Messiah and his Kingdom.  Well, many people were saying that Jesus could quite possibly be the Messiah.  Believing themselves to be the most righteous, they felt they had the right to suss him out when it should have been the other way around; Jesus sussing them.

So, Jesus comes to this powerful man’s house.  It’s a Sabbath and all eyes are upon him, watching him closely.  The first thing he does is heal a man with dropsy.  Dropsy is edema, a disease where the body has an excessive buildup of fluid and appears extremely swollen.  One could shake the belly of someone with dropsy and hear the water slosh.  Jesus healed him and confronted the dinner guest’s legalism with respect to what the Sabbath is really for.  The Sabbath is not about a legal requirement to not work on a holy day.  It is about rest and restoration and therefore healing is entirely appropriate for the Sabbath.  

This healing on the Sabbath should have revealed to them that the Messiah was truly there among them manifesting the Kingdom.  When Jesus is in the midst of people, healing will happen whether it be physical, emotional, or spiritual.  Those expecting the Messiah and his Kingdom should be looking for healing not legalistic perfection that always devolves into hypocrisy.  Looking at our church gatherings today, I ask the question: when we gather for worship do we expect Jesus to be here in our midst and that healing in whatever form it takes will happens?  Worship can’t just simply be what good people do because God deserves our thanks and praise.  Worship is time for us to be in the presence of God to ask for healing and give room for that to happen.

Next, Jesus, the scrutinized, notices that the guests were choosing the places of honour at the table.  So, he teaches from the Book of Proverbs, “Do not put yourself forward in the king's presence or stand in the place of the great; for it is better to be told, ‘Come up here,’ than to be put lower in the presence of a noble” (25:6-7).  Obviously, if they were serious about obeying the Law they would know that it is to be obeyed in humility rather than this show of working hard to put oneself in the winner’s circle before others.  The king is the most honoured person and people serve the king wholeheartedly because of who the king is not for the reward they think they have earned.  In actuality, Jesus the scrutinized was the most honourable person at that dinner and should have been invited by the host to sit in the most honoured place.  But the host didn’t invite him and in humility Jesus didn’t demand it.  Instead, since the seat was empty it was the guests who started jockeying for the seat of honour. 

Humility is also a core element of the Kingdom of God.  Fellowship with and around Jesus is marked by each of us considering each other as better than ourselves, by our looking to the needs of others before our own.  Serving one another, listening to one another, building one another up, and holding each other accountable when we are falling short; these are what humility looks like in action.

Humility blossoms into the flower of indiscriminate hospitality.  So, Jesus instructs the host that when he holds a feast he should rather invite the blind, poor, and lame; those who could never repay him his kindness for the Lord will repay those who are kind to the poor (Pr. 19:17).  Besides they would make better guests than these buffoons who think themselves deserving of honour (Pr. 14:20).  We tend to like to associate with those just like us.  Look at any given church and you will likely find the people are pretty much racially, ethnically, economically, and aged all about the same.  They will also hold pretty much the same beliefs and opinions.  That’s called homogeneity.  Homogeneity is safe.  But, Jesus points us in another direction; that of being intentional about creating uplifting, transformative fellowship with people who are different than us.  Meals are quite conducive to this.  Jesus did most of his teaching around tables during meals.  So, when it comes to things like meals, when we have them, we should be quite intentional to make those meals about extending fellowship to those who aren’t like us.

So, wrapping up, when Jesus is among us manifesting his Kingdom, three things we can expect to see is that healing in whatever its form is happening.  We ourselves are marked by a rich humility.  And, this humility blossoms into our being intentional in offering indiscriminate hospitality.  What does this look like? Well, imagine.  What if our worship services were changed to free of charge meals where we especially invited the people nearby who ain’t like us.  When they came, we seated them at tables with us.  While we served dinner, we took the time to listen to each other’s stories and got to know each other.  Then, someone told a Jesus story and then another someone told of how Jesus touched them through the Holy Spirit.  Then we offered prayer for whoever wanted it.  Imagine if we did worship like that.  Imagine.  What do you think would happen?  Amen.

 

Wait for the Glory Things

 Luke 13:10-17

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My first summer in seminary I did a field placement in a United Methodist Church retirement community.  One of the residents, Annie, suffered the condition that this woman in our reading suffered.  It’s more than just being hunched over.  It’s completely bent over at the waist and unable to stand up.  My first encounter with Annie was interesting.  She had a reputation for being abrasive and grumpy which she lived up to.  It was nearing a mealtime and so the residents were making their way to the dining hall. I could hear Annie coming up behind me from down the hall.  She used a simple old style, inexpensive, rattle-tattle, metal walker that she was quite rough on.  Sometimes she rolled it, and sometimes she picked it up and slammed it down.  She came up beside me.  She was thin and quite wiry with long, white hair.  She turned her head to the side and looked up at me with what seemed to be a permanent scowl and quite abruptly said, “Who are you?”  I answered, “I’m Randy.  I’m a chaplain intern here for the summer.”  She abruptly replied, “Oh.” Then, she looked at me again and grunted, “Hmph”, and down the hall she went to the dining room.  I asked the fulltime chaplains about her later that day and they said “That’s Annie.  She’s a bit...”  

I always think of Annie when I come across this passage and why she was so, for lack of a better word, grumpy.  Think about it.  Try to imagine being in her place, in her situation of never being able to stand up straight.  You can never stand eye-to-eye with someone.  Hugs are very “quite awkward”.  If you have to walk in the midst of a crowd of people as we were, there’s no seeing where you’re going.  Most of what you see are backsides.  Then to look at someone, you have to torque your head to the side and look up.  To see where you’re going you have to crank your head back.  Being bent over like that puts a person in a posture where people are always looking down on you seemingly with a bit of pity.  I don’t know if she was in pain, but I can’t imagine her not being in considerable pain, especially her neck.  Pain messes with you…especially chronic pain.  Her perspective would have already been a bit damaged by the angle of lowered status from which she had to view life but then the depression that accompanies chronic pain would have put all that on over the edge.  It would take a very resilient person to not be grumpy.  And who knows what else she had been through in life.  What loses she may have suffered and the grief she bore.  That Annie hurt was so obvious and so it’s not fair just to write her off as grumpy.  She needed to be uplifted, strengthened in spirit so she could straighten and stand in wholeness. I always tried to be especially kind to her when I saw her, though my greetings were usually met by a grunt.  Eventually, I did get a smile one day. One can only keep trying.

Looking here in Luke, we find a woman bent over like Annie whose situation was dramatically changed by Jesus.  She got to stand up straight again and praise God for Jesus healed her.  She had what Luke calls “a spirit of weakness” from whom Jesus set her free.  It was a spirit, some sort of entity, that had her bent over so that she couldn’t stand up straight.  Like Annie she wasn’t able to look up.  People were always looking down at her.  They probably also considered her cursed and would have been unwilling to have any kind of contact with her.  Considerable pain likely affected her outlook.  Chronic pain is debilitating in every way – emotionally, psychologically, even spiritually.  It takes your joy away.  It can even turn you from God.  

I imagine this woman’s story as being a bit like the story of Job.  She was faithful, so Satan decided to send a crippling spirit to cripple her in spirit to try her faith.  But it didn’t work.  Indeed, she suffered greatly for eighteen years.  But still, after eighteen long years of that twisted affliction, she was still coming to synagogue on the Sabbath.  Well, on that particular Sabbath, Luke doesn’t tell us that she came to synagogue because she knew Jesus was there and she believed he could heal her.  It seems she was there because her faith in God was a core component to how she lived with that senseless affliction.  She didn’t come looking for Jesus.  Rather, it was Jesus who saw her and the initiative to heal her.  As the prophet Isaiah said, “He gives strength to the faint and strengthens the powerless…Those who trust in the Lord will renew their strength.  They will soar on wings like eagles.  They will run and not become weary.  They will walk and not faint” (Is 30:29,31).  Jesus said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your weakness.”  And, he touched her.  He laid his hands on her.  She took strength and stood up straight.  For the first time in eighteen years, she could look people in the eye, face-to-face.  For the first time in eighteen years, she could give a hug that wasn’t “quite awkward”.  For the first time in eighteen years…no pain.  You bet she began to praise God and she did it so exuberantly that it became a disturbance.  For eighteen painful years afflicted by a spirit of weakness she did not give up on God but kept coming, seeking her God, and finding comfort at the synagogue…then finally, a joy unspeakable. “The joy of the Lord is your strength” (Neh. 8:10).

Her praising eventually infected the whole congregation.  Luke said they were rejoicing because of “all the wonderful things that Jesus was doing”.  Our English translations just do not do that phrase justice. In the Greek it says that they were expressing joy because of “all the glory-things that Jesus was bringing into being.”  Here was Jesus, the Lord God become human, doing things through which God’s glory shone.  He was putting to right those things that are inexplicably hurtfully contorted by evil in the Creation God called “very good” when he completed it and then rested on the Sabbath.  These “glory-things” that Jesus was doing brought joy that was uncharacteristic of the typical, humdrum that characterized the typical, dutiful worship/teaching at the synagogue on the Sabbath.  At that synagogue on that Sabbath the glory of God was shining forth.  God was with his people.  They were being visited by God who was actually, in real life giving them reason to have joy.  It became as the Psalmist says: “Those who sow in tears will reap with shouts of joy” (Ps. 126:5).

I’ve been reading the Psalms a lot lately.  They are good to read in difficult times as they give us the authentic voice of people struggling with very painful difficulties in a faithful way and they also show us that God indeed responds in loving-kindness out of loyalty to us.  There’s a verse that got my attention one night: “But as for me, God’s presence is my good.  I have made the Lord God my refuge, so I can tell about all you do” (Ps. 73:26).  God's Presence with us is the "good" that we all seek.  But “Good”, what is “good”? Looking back at the Creation Story in Genesis 1, when God saw all that he created and called it good and then very good on the sixth day after he created humanity.  This goodness of his creation delighted God.  So, at heart the Creation is fundamentally “Good”.  In fact, Psalm 33:5 says, “the earth is full of the Lord’s faithful love.”  God’s loving kindness is foundational to God’s very good creation.  We can get a sense of this foundational "goodness" when we find ourselves in God's presence as we look around and breathe and see and feel the beauty and joy and love of the moment of just being where we're at and we somehow sense that God is present to us there.  A beautiful sunset isn’t God, but God is certainly there reposing with us and appreciating it.

I also think “good” is profoundly relational.  In fact, I believe the “very good” that God pronounced is found in relationship.   It is “very good” when we feel at home, secure, beloved with family and friends and even strangers sometimes, but yet there's even more.  It is very good when there's an inexplicable and inexpressible sense of a bond of love with another and we know that it is God we have to thank for bringing this bond into existence.  This “very good” points us to God.  It is “very good” when the loving kindness of God is embodied in our relationships, in marriage, in family, in friendship. 

It is also “very good” when healing froths up in whatever its form be it emotional, physical, or relational.  There is indeed brokenness in God’s very good creation.  On the other side of this goodness, is the twisted stuff that leads us to ask why God permits the un-good, the evil.  Why did God allow Satan to afflict this woman with a spirit of weakness?  Why did God allow Satan to wreak havoc on Job in a way that just seemed like an unholy bet?  Why does God allow our faithfulness to be tested by means of just plain horrible and unfair things that happen?  Why does God let the good in our lives suddenly and with great hurt just go to pots?  I don't know the answers to questions like those and you have no idea how much I wish I did.  But I have learned to seek refuge in the presence of God and there find the strength of hope and the glimmers of joy to hold me while I wait for the healing to come, for God's joy-filled restoration of the good.  While I wait for the “Glory-thing” to come about. While we wait God avails us to his presence that we may find our “good” in God alone, in God’s healing presence, that God who assures us that we are God’s beloved.

I’ll end just by saying that Job didn’t get his answers.  In fact, God shut him up with the Goodness of his presence.  Satan afflicted Job because of Job’s faithfulness and God let him do it.  We don’t know why and it doesn’t seem like one of God’s better moments.  Satan murdered all of Job’s children and took everything Job had and then afflicted him with a horribly gross and painful skin condition.  The only comfort Job received was in the form of hypocritical friends relentlessly accusing him of some hidden sin for which he was being punished.  But Job was innocent.  Finally, God came to Job in the form of a life-threatening storm.  As animals of all sorts were fleeing the storm and passing by Job as he sat on the heap of ashes that he had become accustomed to, God bluntly asked Job who he was to question the God who made everything; that jackal, that lion, that hippo, and even the sea monsters.  That sounds harsh, but…Job suddenly realized he was in the “very good” presence of God and that changed everything.  There in the midst of a life-threatening storm that Job probably wished would kill him he simply says, “I had heard reports about you, but now my eyes have seen you.  Therefore, I reject my words and am sorry for them.”  The presence of the Lord was his “good”.  The injustice of all Job went through paled in comparison to the goodness of the presence of God with him.  Too often we get caught up in the hurt of our own situations and forget God is with us and we can find rest and strength in God.  Even so, God still hears us, still sees us, is still with us.  He is still inclined towards us with loving-kindness and fierce loyalty.  Sit in Good’s presence and wait on him.  There is the “good” in which God strengthens, heals, and restores us.  Amen.